“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.” – Sir Isaac Newton

How can you and I possibly use this leadership quote?

Humility?

A lack of humility in a leader who is in the public spotlight can have a dramatically bad effect on the perception of those who follow us.

I was castigated by one of my Twitter followers for quoting this, because, he said, it is so oft repeated all over the internet. As Newton wrote to himself, “Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but my greatest friend is truth.” The headline quote, without a doubt he saw as the truth. And it is one of the most famous leadership quotes you can find in the proverbial manual.

As one who has scientific training, I make no apology for repeating this quote. I regularly walk through the grounds of Trinity College, Cambridge where Sir Isaac Newton amongst so many others was a member. A feel overawed and hear the echoes of history all around me. There is no doubt that so many have stood on the shoulders of Newton.

We, who may tend towards arrogance, we leaders who are sometimes surrounded by “yes-men” (oh how they are to be avoided) should listen to Newton and learn some humility from a man with one of the greatest brains and who made some of the greatest discoveries of all time.

He did not claim to know everything, even though he gained adulation in his own lifetime. He knew he couldn’t possibly know everything. As he said “To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‘Tis much better to do a little with certainty, & leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.”

The great ocean of Truth

And to finish this little homily to one of my heroes, I believe this to be probably his greatest saying and one of the most inspirational leadership quotes I keep coming back to every now and again:

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Acknowledge our boundaries

What he appears to me is something more than a little boy playing on the seashore, but I catch his drift :). By acknowledging our boundaries and limitations, we attain greater heights than we ever will by appearing to think we know everything.

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“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” – Jonathan Swift

How can you and I possibly use this leadership quote?

I spent a good deal of time over the years in various leadership positions thinking about this word “vision”.

Jonathan Swift has hit absolutely at the heart of it. And when you have this vision, this insight, are you alone? How will you share it with those around you? You must share it with those who are with you on the journey.

If it is visible to you and not them, you will need to find a way to share it. There will be those who are not leaders, who do not understand and who will exhort you to carve this vision into a tablet of stone and erect it in a prominent area, probably in your entrance hall or lobby. Will this help people to see the invisible? I say that is unlikely. Share your vision by what you do more than in what you say. Your actions will help you to make clear to others your vision for the direction of your company and of your team. You have to help them to see the invisible. Show them – and tell them. But above all, show them.

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“You’ve got to think about the big things while you’re doing the small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” – Alvin Toffler

How can you and I possibly use this leadership quote?

Make yourself a Self-Starter.

This is a very simple little tool but don’t be fooled by its simplicity.

You and I know that when we are reminded of something, we are more likely to do it. It’s not that you forget, but other things have a way of interrupting. It’s when you forget that the day goes by and you haven’t done the things you should have done. And that’s when you become frustrated.

Now, you can try and remember what to do. You can put it on your “to do” list. You can write it on a piece of paper and put it on your wall. These are good ideas. But how will you be sure to remember?

And when you do remember, at the end of every working day, when you know that you’ve been working on your main goals, you will feel so much more fulfilled.

This is how you do it. Make yourself a Self-Starter. Let me help you see how this relates to Alvin Toffler’s quote on leadership.

In its simplest form, this is a piece of durable cardboard which will fit into your wallet, purse or pocket. If you want, you can buy a small laminating pouch and laminator. Make sure you can carry it with you.

On the self-starter, write down your goals. Don’t write down goals which are so obvious that there is no need to remind yourself of them. Write down your main goals. If you like, on the other side you can draw or print a picture of your vision, where you really want to be.

Napoleon Hill, author of “Think and Grow Rich” used one of these and apparently he got the idea from Andrew Carnegie. So, we are in good company in using one. A Swedish productivity guru, Lennart Meynert, called it the Self-Starter and I like that name for it.

Like you do your favourite quotes about leadership, carry your Self-Starter with you at all times. At first, you will need to remind yourself to look at it. You must make it a habit. Always look at it first thing, before you start your work. Always look at it at the end of your working day as a crosscheck. Find a way to make it a habit.

You will soon start to remember your main goals.

Be sure to do this. Don’t spend too long deciding what to put on it. A less than perfect Self-Starter is far better than none at all. You can always modify it and produce a new one. It’s not a huge investment in cost but there is a huge payback from it.

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Like many great leadership quotes, this one applies to areas other than work and business.

In classical physics, there are two types of friction. There is static friction, when two objects are motionless and there is dynamic friction – when they are in motion. Static friction is greater than dynamic friction. This means more energy is needed to start moving something that it is to keep it moving. This is a great analogy for getting things done. You cannot achieve your goal unless you take that first step. And once you are moving, you will have inertia which keeps you moving, helping you to move onwards.

You can find so many ways to put things off. Sometimes, it’s because you find it easier to do the trivial things. Sometimes it might be lack of confidence in your ability to accomplish the job in hand. It could be the distractions provided by our wonderful modern technology like e-mails, social networks, smartphones or catch-up TV.

Quotes on Leadership and Goal Setting

Whatever it is that’s holding you back, you know that unless you make a start, you will go through the day and at the end of it, you will feel worn out. And you will also feel that you have not made the progress you want. You will not have moved in the direction of your goal. The goal will still be sitting there as far away as it was before and you will feel that sense of frustration in not having achieved as much as you wanted in the day. Maybe you will feel you haven’t achieve anything at all.

Psychologists have investigated the phenomenon of procrastination, putting off the start and have come up with many explanations for it. There is the fear of failure and the fear of success, for example. When you put off doing important things, you try to deal with the disappointment by jumping on the hamster wheel and running a bit, doing those things which you know won’t move you forward in the direction of your goals. You know that you must actually do the task in the end and this is gives you a guilty conscience, which makes you feel worse. Then you are even less likely to make a start!.

The good news is that all this is very common! You are not a defective human being because you want to do mundane tasks rather than those critically important ones.

You can find many ways of giving yourself a kick-start. Clear your work area (but don’t make it the main task of the day!). Fetch out the things you need to do the work. Promise yourself a little reward after you have accomplished a certain amount of completely on-task activity.

Sometimes, there are several ways to do a certain important task and rather than choose one, we spend for ever deciding on which one is the best. You can be sure that there are often are several ways to arrive at your goal. Most of them will be fine. Just pick one!

At the end of that day when you have ticked a few of those boxes on the really important tasks which will move you toward your goal, you will feel on top of the world. You will know that you can do it again. You can make a habit of using those simple techniques which work for you.

A Simple Technique

I am going to give you a simple technique which will help you make that start.

Take your “to do” list. Write the number 1 against the most important thing on that list, the one which will move you towards one of your main goals. Decide that you will work on it for 25 minutes and at the end of that time you will give yourself a 10 minute break.

Turn off your e-mails, switch your phone on silent and put it away. Note the time, start the task and work on it solidly until the 25 minutes is up. Stop and take that 10 min. Now go back to your work, if the task is still not complete, work on it for another 25 minutes. If the task is complete, go back to your list and pick the next most important item on it, using your overall priorities to decide. Repeat and at the end of the day you will have moved on massively with your important goal.

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“He who asks a question is a fool for a minute; he who does not remains a fool forever” – Chinese Proverb

How can you and I possibly use this leadership quote?

If you don’t understand something and you just sit there without opening your mouth, what happens if nobody else asks? You may never know the answer.

This Chinese proverb, unlike many inspirational leadership quotes we use in business, holds true for other areas of life as well.

Memories from childhood

When you were a young child, you asked and asked, until the adults around you sometimes became frustrated. “Why?” you asked. “Why is that like that?” “Why did that happen….?” Then as you grew up, you learnt that it was polite to be quiet. Over those early years, asking questions started to make you embarrassed. You didn’t want to disturb anyone. You were told it wasn’t polite. And you certainly didn’t want to be made to look a fool!

You sat there in class and the others (who also didn’t know) laughed at you when you asked that question. You felt uncomfortable because of the peer pressure.

Where does this leave you now?

Sitting there and sometimes not knowing. That isn’t better than knowing, is it? You are sitting in the company of somebody who knows more about the subject than you do and if you don’t ask a question, when you leave you will know maybe a tenth of what you would have learned if you had asked some searching questions.

When you go to a big meeting, sit near the front. When the speaker says something you don’t understand, put up your hand and ask. Do it because you want to know. Do it also because the room will be full of people who don’t understand and you will be helping them too.

If you are sitting together with somebody and they say something you don’t understand you can make a note of the question and then ask them when the right time comes. That way you don’t have to interrupt them.

Successful people are generally very happy to share their knowledge. We wouldn’t have such a huge treasury of famous leadership quotes and guidelines if this weren’t true. If you ask a question, you will find that you gain the respect of the speaker as well as most of the audience. Far from looking a fool, you will gain in stature and knowledge. You may even have the chance to follow up later with further clarification and learn even more.

When you’re sitting there deciding whether to ask or not and it’s 50 – 50, come down on the side of asking the question. Listen to what is said, ask your question, safe in the knowledge that if you haven’t understood it then it probably wasn’t explained clearly enough. Perhaps the speaker made some assumptions about basic knowledge because they are an expert. So, every time you don’t understand something, ask! You won’t be the fool who goes through their life in ignorance. You will be the one who understands.

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